


Some Sunny Day

by auroreanrave



Category: Overlord (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, F/M, Ficlet, Found Family, Home, Post-World War II, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 09:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18602236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave
Summary: She has a handful of addresses and phone numbers in a pocketbook and Paul even has a postcard from Tibbet, back in New York and recuperating, with a photograph of Yankee Stadium. They have ties that bind them, as strong as steel and as red as blood, from what they've endured and survived together.Chloe checks the address again as they take the truck, long since liberated from the Nazis, and drive down the rickety roads to the coastline. Ed Boyle, once of Louisiana and now of Ohio.





	Some Sunny Day

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So this is a little something I've had half-finished for a while. I love horror movies and JJ Abrams so Overlord really hit a lot of sweet spots for me, including the lovely relationship between Ed and Chloe. I wanted to write them a happiness together, along with Paul, one which hopefully reflects the time well and gives them a fresh start. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Title comes from Vera Lynn's WWII anthem, 'We'll Meet Again".

The autumn after the war officially ends, Chloe and Paul leave Cielblanc, the thin, weary passport papers tucked into their pockets. The town has nothing left for them, especially not since the Allies have long since rolled back their forces, every solider and general beating a retreat back to the motherland, back to their families and friends, to their warm hearths and skies that don't smell of rotten blood.

She has a handful of addresses and phone numbers in a pocketbook and Paul even has a postcard from Tibbet, back in New York and recuperating, with a photograph of Yankee Stadium. They have ties that bind them, as strong as steel and as red as blood, from what they've endured and survived together.

Chloe checks the address again as they take the truck, long since liberated from the Nazis, and drive down the rickety roads to the coastline. Ed Boyle, once of Louisiana and now of Ohio.

 

* * *

 

Boyle is in his mother's house when Chloe and Paul arrive, sleepy and wired from the boat and the car journeys and the bus journeys, and he's sat out front, his lawn shining and neat and bright.

"Chloe?" Boyle says, stepping out into the sunshine. He looks a little older, a little more world-beaten, but underneath it, he's still the same boy who spoke Louisiana French to her in her aunt's home and made her smile when the world was ending.

"Oui," she says, because she can, and throws herself into his arms. Boyle grips on tightly and Chloe holds onto too, because a piece of her has settled into herself, a restless sprite brought to rest. She's missed him so much.

That evening, Boyle - Ed, he insists - introduces Paul and Chloe to his mother, a stoic but kind woman named Beatrice who makes them food, cornbread and ribs and collard greens and Paul earns himself points in Beatrice's eyes by helping her make the blueberry pie.

After dinner and conversation and Chloe telling Beatrice an abridged version of what happened in Cielblanc, Beatrice heads off to bed, and Paul falls asleep on the couch, and Ed and Chloe sit outside on the porch, two warm bottles of beer in their hands.

"So what happened? After we left?" Ed asks.

"We waited out the end of the war. The Americans left and we rebuilt and then the war ended and..." Chloe shrugs, taking a sip. "We wanted to start again. Paul... the memories were too much to stay. Are too much. What about you?"

"We toured into the south of France, then Italy to stamp out some Nazi resistance. We were on the way to Greece to take back the Aegeans when we got word about surrender. I couldn't believe it."

The silence blooms around them. Their fingers interlink, holding on as the weight of years presses down upon the both of them.

"Now what?"

Chloe is silent. "I want to go. Not... not here. Somewhere clean. For all of us."

"You want me to come with?"

"I'll stay here if you like, Ed. I wouldn't ask you to do something you don't want to. But I want to breathe clean air. Breathe... fresh air. New air. Live somewhere where..."

"Where it's like fresh snow. Where you can live... without history upon you."

Chloe nods, because of course Ed knows her mind, knows what she's thinking, and pulls him into a hug.

Their foreheads press together, breaths mingling. Chloe's heart thrums like a guitar string.

"Where do you wanna go?" he asks. Trusts her implicitly. Chloe knows that France has no place for her or Paul, that America is not for Ed either. They cling to one another like survivors in the water, fighting to stay afloat. They need a place to shelter.

"I think I know," Chloe says, and tells him, her hands resting on his shoulders, thumb resting on an old scar wound, the curve of a bullet.

* * *

 

  
With money and papers burning holes in their pockets, the three of them make their way into Canada, a trio of battle-worn refugees.

It's becoming winter and Ed's loose arrangements in the sleepy little town in Sasketchawan - renting cars and double-checking the lease on the home and stopping several times to buy more and more supplies, until Paul is just a pair of eyes on the backseat, bracketed by food and blankets and paper bags full of logs for the fires - mean that when they arrive, it's snowing heavily and the cabin looks like an oasis in white sand.

The first three days are filled with sleep and banking fires against the cold, all three of them adjusting their sensibilities to the change. They all fall asleep against one another on the couch on the first night and Chloe awakens to find Ed's nose pressed against the crown of her hair and Paul tucked against her side like when he was even smaller. She thinks _I hope this was the right decision_ and falls right back asleep.

Food and more food. Sleep and more sleep. Chloe and Paul's French is a different flavour to the Canadian style, inflected with a variant of Quebecois somehow despite the distance in regions, and Ed's own Louisiana is startling enough that the first time he tries it out in the town's bakery, he gets odd looks and smiles and within five minutes has made a dozen friends who ply him with pastries and invitations.

Slowly the memories of Cielblanc and Europe start to fade as the heavy snows recede. Christmas is sombre and joyous, memories of families lost and of new ones gained. They open presents from Tibbet and Rosenfeld and trade books and pencils and baseballs and eat a lot, too much, so much that Paul unbuttons his pants buttons and Ed falls asleep on the couch.

Beatrice comes to stay for a week or two and likes the place, even beneath her serious facade, and maybe one of these days they'll convince her to leave her Ohio home and take over the house down the street, near the bookstore she likes and the church she approves of.

Paul still has nightmares and Chloe and Ed sit on his bedside and talk, about how everything evil has been buried in the ruins of the church, of how the world is healing, slowly but surely. The nightmares are reducing, even if they may never truly leave.

It's a fresh spring morning when Ed finally kisses her, the pair of them watching as Paul leaves with a couple of friends for the local secondary school. Chloe has a few minutes before she has to leave for her morning classes at the Regina College and Ed's fingers are still damp from cleaning the dishes.

"Finally," Chloe says with a smile. Ed's eyes brighten and he grins into her mouth, and everything is finally alright.

**Author's Note:**

> All the historical references throughout the fic as are as accurate as I could find/research, so please let me know if I've got something wrong so I can correct it or work on it for the future. Many thanks!


End file.
